Summer, you may have noticed, is gone. No more warm weather. No more sun and sandy beaches. Prepare for 8,000 years of winter. Or, if you’re like Milwaukee tropical-pop outfit L’Resorts, just take a vacation.
Vacation, released in August, is the latest full-length record from the L’Resorts brain trust of Vincent Kircher (Jaill) and Martha Cannon (Lady Cannon). Like previous releases, it’s an irresistible cocktail of sunny instrumentation, droll vocals, and cracker-jack songwriting. Oh, and more than a few clouds: At first listen, the opening title track may sound like a toes-in-the-sand ode to flying to warmer climes, but dig deeper and you’ll find a narrator bemoaning the fact that a vacationing lover has left them behind. “I’m not giving in but I’m not living,” Kircher and Cannon sing. “This cold state has got me shivering.” We feel you.
Things perk up elsewhere, especially on the pleasantly intoxicating “Bubbles” (“I’ve been looking for some trouble / Trouble, trouble, trouble / And I found it all in you”) and the loopy “Kiss Me” (“Kiss me, lift me, twist me, miss me baby”). Lovey-dovey moments like that abound, but songs like the remarkable “Backwards” show a refreshingly mature side to L’Resorts, too. “Don’t go backwards / Let’s be better / Let’s open up our eyes so we can look forward” Kircher and Cannon sing. It’s easy to imagine two long-term lovers at a crossroads, sunny new adventures in one direction, the cold work of commitment in the other. Vacation lets you choose your own adventure.
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